Grace Chapel Bible Ministries
Tuesday night Bible Study/ Revelation; 7 - 2024/11/12
(soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) for and keep in prayer for George and his venue. We're talking a little bit about future that they may meet here and that would be a blessing to us to have them. So anyway, we've got any, any other things that we're. All right, let's turn to the Lord in prayer. Father in heaven, thank you for this opportunity once again to fellowship in your word. We thank Heavenly Father for your word. Comfort just, strengthen us, guide us. Let us Heavenly Father not be complacent. We thank you for the election results. We thank Heavenly Father for a possibility of a good government and we pray Heavenly Father to bless the incoming president and I pray Heavenly Father for his leadership, his wisdom, restricted his company, country. Not that we can go about this exercise of freedom to anything, but freedom with responsibility. May we use the time that you've given to us in repentance and and do work of repentance and to make the use of our time to grow, to strengthen our walk as we continue to grow in grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in whose name we pray. Amen. We are in Revelation chapter one, we're coming in verse four and verse four is a salutation. It is and we begin this morning with John or this evening with verse four, John to the seven or John to the seven churches that are in Asia. We spoke Sunday about churches. It is assembly. We find that even in the New Testament, at least one time it refers to Israel as a congregation. That word, congregation is ecclesia, same word that we use for church. And we also noted that with throughout the New Testament, the word church, which what was it? We found it that in verse 16 that it was Jesus who was the one, first mentioned his church, my church, he calls it. And in context, the church is the body of Christ. We also looked at the two types of churches. We have the local church. The local ecclesia is the assembly that comes together to worship. And within that church body, there are varying spiritual gifts among the believers. There is encouragement, there's helps, there's administration to work with. Yes, the spiritual gifts can work outside. But the church, complete church, that there are the varying spiritual gifts that is going to edify the entire body. That church, individually, we have the individually, we all have the spiritual objective to grow in grace, to reach spiritual maturity, to grow in the world, to grow spiritually, to grow up. None of us come into the spiritual life as spiritual adults. We all come into this life as spiritual babies. But our individually, we have the objective to grow in grace, to grow in grace, to maturity. That's the sanctification phase of our spiritual life. As we're taking in the Word of God, under the filling ministry of God, the Holy Spirit, we're learning to live a new life. Yes, we can't. It's just as you are, but the Lord doesn't intend for us to stay as we are. We are growing to be emagers of Christ. So that's the individual, as a church body, that local assembly that supports that, then that fellowship and the spiritual gifts within that local gift is a, that's where it becomes a group effort. Within the church, you have the mature believers. Well, yes, the mature believers, these are the fathers, as John would describe them, but mature, the telleus believers, they're your elders, they're your first sars, they're your senior staff. They've been around a while, they've been around the block, they've been tested. Some of them are going through the things that you're going through, and they're going to help you in your spiritual growth. Then you have those adolescent believers, they're growing, they look up to the elders for guides, but they can also disciple those that are less mature, just coming into the faith. And then you've got the spiritual babies. You've got the ones who have just been saved, and they're just starting out in life. So that's your local church, that's a picture of your local church, that's your picture of your assembly. And it's important, I emphasize the point that it's important for you to be there. Because it's not just a pastor in the pulpit, preaching the word, and okay, everything's good, and you go home. But there is a connect, that connectivity of fellowship, a cornea, with that, that's within the local church. And then we spoke of the universal church, all the church, all the church is in one body, and heaven there's not going to be a separation of, of denominations, or, or different local churches, it will be one body, and that one body is the body of Christ. And this is whom John is addressing, and John to the seven churches that are in Asia. Let me see if I can bring this up here to, up here for you. We'll fade that over here, and then we'll see what we can do here. Revelation one, John to the seven churches in Asia, I want to bring this up for you, we'll put this place, and we'll go to the Atlas and bring this up. All right, coming down. That's not exactly what we want. Let's drop down here, there we go. There we go. You see that all right, Bec? Let me, all right, coming up. There we go. Well, we're bringing this out just a little bit. Asia, and this is Asia Minor. Give me a little bit of reference where, where we're at on here, over here at Italy. And all this area is centered around our, our study and revelation in this place. You got Patmus, which is the island out here in the Aegean Sea. And then you have these, and then the seven churches, forms kind of like a, a little bit of a a route. Let's just call it route. So this, this, this particular area right here is a place in Turkey, as it were right here. So this is where John to the seven churches, which are in Asia, and these seven churches are Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergammon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. And question comes up, John to the seven churches, and this is Eptah. Why, why the seven? Because there's other churches within that particular area as well. There's Colossae, that over in Italy, there's, there's the other church in Rome, there's the Corinth church, there is Galatia. So there's, there's many number of churches. What, what is it about these seven churches that are, that are singled out? And what about the rest of the churches? Well, it's, I think, seven will give us the, the, the clue here to seven. And let's bring it up with Lewadnite, if I could. Yes, it brings it right up, very good. Seven Eptah, everybody say Eptah? And that's epsilon, p, tau, and alpha. And it means seven. And he takes along with him seven other spirits. That's the Eptah. John to the seven, Eptah, churches of Asia, and ancient times. Seven was regarded as a particularly important, sacred number. And it's especially relevant in the number of passages and the book of Revelation. And throughout the whole book, actually, throughout the whole book, we have the, the whole Bible. Seven becomes a very significant number. In the, in our day, the, we pretty much live in a number system of, of decimals. And we go by tens, tens and deca. We got a hundred, no, we got a thousand. And, and that's, so here, when you carry out your decimal point, there are tens, hundreds, what have you. And that would be, that would be our number, but God's number system is more to seven. What do you think? Where is it that the first place that you believe, uh, first place in the Bible that you think that comes up with the number seven? Very good. Where do we find that? Exactly right. And Seth, uh, we find the first seven in Genesis that he worked for six days, and he rested on the seventh day because his, not because the Lord was tired, but because his work was complete. He completed his work, um, and the, the, the seven was the recognition of a week. Um, other cultures have tried to add to, add to it so that they could increase their productivity and what have, and productivity did not rise. I think Russia tried to make it a 10 day week. Um, and it, it didn't work. Um, it's God's design, um, and, and a completed week. And even there that you'd find if you're busy working seven days a week, you might try, um, try testing it and seeing taking that one day off, taking that one day off and see if you're not and as a test and to prove the Bible. Um, and I believe you will find as I found that having that one day of rest and it's the completed week. All right. There's other places in the Bible throughout the Bible. There is the, so you have the Shabbat, the seven, the Sabbath is the seven, seven days and you have a week of seven days, but you also have a sabbatical year. And the sabbatical year is the fact that you are to work the lands. This was, um, from Israel, directed to Israel, that they were to work the land for seven years, or six years as you were. And on the seventh, we, on the seventh year that they were to allow the land to rest. They were not to plant or harvest a field. They were the year before, they were to work and make more and ensure that they had a, um, that they, that they could survive that one year, that, but that, but on that seventh year, the land would rest. And, um, and there's a shimitah, um, SHEM ITAH, and that seventh year is the shimitah, or we can call it the sabbatical year, sabbatical year. So there you have the seven years there. And it was a, it was a completion of a cycle. The seven, the seven day week was a completion of the cycle. The seven years was a completion of the cycle. And then when you had the, and then there would be seven, sevens, which would be 49 years. And after the 49th year, you'd have one more year, the next year would be, and that cycle would be the 50, um, would be the 50 year, that would be the jubilee. And interesting enough that interesting things have happened on the year of jubilee. Um, for instance, okay, first of all, it was the, um, shimitah that, um, in 80, 70, it fell on the shimitah when Israel, uh, was exiled. That was the fall of Jerusalem. And the people were dispersed throughout the world at that point. And then, um, and they were, they were, that's when they lost the land. That's where exiled the land and they were dispersed throughout the entire world. And then that land, um, in 1917, it was a, it was the prior to the year of jubilee, in 1917, that British, the British forces liberated Jerusalem. And it was the, in that liberation that people came back to the land in 1917. They, uh, it was the British who, um, liberated the Israel, or liberated Jerusalem from the Ottoman Turks. And for the first time, and this is the miracle that a people who have been displaced, all the way back from 80, 70, due to math, how long that was, but they were the only people that came back as a people fully intact with their culture and their language. Fantastic. And that was, so the shimitah in accounting continued on the seven years and the next, um, the next jubilee cycle was in 1960, 1966 to 1967. And what happened then? The six-day war. And it was the six-day war, the Arab-Israeli war. And it was that Israel, and Israel was attacked by the Arab nations. And they fought back, and they acquired their land, and much land, to include the mountains, which Ezekiel talks about, that they would possess. And so now they, uh, they won, and now they are, um, they had acquired land there, a significant amount of land, and then they're, and the next cycle, the next cycle, um, oh yeah, very important. It was in 1967 that, that they entered through the lines gate, that the forces entered through the lines gate, to recognize that Jerusalem is the capital by them. And then, um, 50 years later is, uh, 2016 to 2017, uh, not 20 years later, 50 years later. And at that point now, um, what happened, what's significant happened then? That is the recognition of a, um, superpower, the United States of America under, at time, President Donald Trump recognized that, uh, Jerusalem, the capillary moved the, moved the capital, which was in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. So can we always predict what's going to happen when these time periods and these cycles come around? No, we, we may not be able to predict what's going to happen, but we can be assured that these are special timing, that God works in, and, and, and that God established a system, and that God moves, and works within those systems. And so we can, uh, and, and again, it goes down to a system of the septaph, uh, septaphs, which is the sevens. Um, nothing about sevens is, uh, how many times was it that when Jesus asked, how many times do we, uh, forgive, um, someone, um, seven times, and Jesus says seven times 70, um, in Matthew 1823, um, that it was a meeting that you always, always forgive someone. Um, and then, um, so seven, oh yeah, um, very, also very important. How many feasts are there? Um, I'm sure Tim's already answering that. Seven feasts. So, seven is a very important number, and at this, and there's probably, there's probably no depth by which we could study this, but I'm going to keep it at the surface because I haven't studied into those depths. But I will tell you that, um, seven is the number of completion. Seven is a number of completion. And, um, the, I'm just reading this, okay, just going back there, make sure I've got everything covered on there. Seven. All right. So, yeah, not too much. We'll continue on. Okay, so now we're talking about the seven churches, and, um, why these seven churches, and I believe that these seven churches, once again, on through your homework, and, and as we continue to study the book of Revelation, you may be, you may come up with other, other thoughts as well. Listen, you're free. Listen, we study together. Okay. Um, so you come up as you're studying this, um, you may come up with, with some other things that I haven't thought of, um, on this, but on the basics that seven is a number of completion. So, when we're dealing with these seven churches, yeah, got them right there, when we're dealing with these, these seven churches, once again, Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thar, Thar, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. Um, they, they are representatives of the entire church body. A couple of things on that. Um, first of all, why just these churches? They may be under, and I believe they are, under John's influence, and that they're, they're the local area. That's those are probably the first churches that receive the letter from John, number one. Um, the other fact is that some, and some commentary should read, I believe, Arnold Falkenbaum, Früttingbaum, um, alludes to this, or at least he, he references this, that it, that it may be each of these churches represent different periods of the church age. Um, from Ephesus that falls away from a first love to Smyrna, which is the persecuted church, um, and so forth and so on, all the way down to where you get laid to see it, which is the last church, which is the lukewarm, uh, lukewarm church. Do your research on that? I'm, I don't really go with that. Uh, I don't, um, uh, I don't really agree with that, but that's okay. Um, but that's one of the ideas. Another thing that I, I believe that each of these churches, and when we see the report card in Revelation 2 and Revelation 3, that these churches will have weaknesses, strengths, and weaknesses, and I believe strengths and weaknesses that are found in every church. And certainly they, they should be set as an example. As we study these, uh, churches, we should be looking at our own church and, uh, and where there are the strengths, then, and then say, okay, you know, that's, that's, you know, in these areas, we're pleasing the God. And in other areas where there's weaknesses, certainly we need to sure up and, and, uh, correct our deficiencies within that local church. I believe those two letters within two and three are very important. All right. So coming back to our our passage, um, and let me say I'll just bring this up here as well. All right. John to the seven churches that are in Asia, grace and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come. And from the seven spirits who are before his throne. All right. So we, so far we've taken a look at seven. We, okay, we've, we've defined churches. We've, um, we've looked at the number seven and we've, we looked at those churches within that, uh, particular area in Asia. And so here's the greeting. And this is often the standard greeting. And it begins with grace. And grace is caress and it, and the, uh, lunata is, is a favorable attitude towards someone or something favor, good will, having good will of all people or all people or pleased with them. For you have found favor with God or for God is pleased with you. Okay. That's and we'll leave it that. So that's once again, now the word, the Greek word is caress is where you get the name Carol from. Um, you know, so with, with caress, the first of all, grace with grace is all that free. Uh, well, first of all, let's go with, with grace. There's two types of grace I'll, I'll talk about today. First of all, there's common grace. Common grace is that which grace that God extends to all, uh, all mankind. And we, to the worst center, to, to the worst center to the, um, to the most moral, um, saint. Yeah, I guess it's a column. Uh, the good and bad that we are all graced out. It is, it is, that God, uh, gives to us what we do not deserve. That, um, that is grace. And he mercy is where he withholds that, which we do deserve. And mercy, he withholds the, the justice that we deserve. And by grace, he extends to us, going back to Adam and, and the garden and Adam and his wife, they didn't deserve to, they didn't deserve a, another breast. The Lord did tell them that on the day that you eat thereof, you will surely die. But, um, it is, and they did die, by the way, they died spiritually, but they could have died right there and breathed their last and that would be it. Every heartbeat, every breath, every, the food that we eat, the, the, the prosperity, um, the God causes, uh, the sun to shine on the wicked and on the, uh, the righteous. He causes rain to fall on the wicked and on the righteous. And so that is common grace extended to all of us. The common grace that we are, we have time to hear the, the message of, of Christ. And we have the common grace and the freedom to heat, to hear it and to respond to God's, um, the gospel and to be safe. Okay, so that is common grace. There is also, so common grace. And then there is the greater grace and the greater grace that surpassing grace is that grace that God is free to extend to those who love him, to those that responded for the, the lesser grace, the common grace that through that grace, they are now children of God by the grace of God. And, um, in that grace, he, he favors their, their, their, a special favor. Now, look at this. We were looking at, um, we're looking at revelation. And there's two perspective of the revelation to the unbeliever. It's dread. It's doom and gloom. It's the apocalypse. But to those who are saved, it's great anticipation. Knowing that on the other side of that, uh, that judgment that that we call, first of all, we're going to be preserved from it. It's just like when we, when you go back, let's look, you've got your Bible which here, let's go back to Genesis chapter, hold your place in there and revelation. Go back to Genesis chapter six with me. Let's go to verse seven. The Lord said, I will blind out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from the man to animals to creeping things and to the birds of the sky, for I am sorry that I have made them. But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. These are the records of the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time. Noah walked with God. The flood is a type of the final judgment. It is a picture of that which it is a foreshadowing of that which is to come. And so Noah represents the believer who is righteous before God and the eyes of God. And all these wicked people, they have time, they are breathing air, their hearts are beating, everything is sustained by the Lord Jesus Christ. So certainly even in the midst of their evil, they're being graced out. But here is Noah, he's going to have a greater grace in the fact that judgment is coming upon this earth. But it's the grace of God that's going to preserve Noah and his family. Noah found favor in the eyes of God. Looking forward for shadowing something that's to come. Now one thing that you need to know is that the flood has a type. A type is never greater than its anti-type. The anti-type is what the type points to. The flood was a type of foreshadowing something to come. And what is to come is the final judgment, is the great and terrible day of the Lord. And so we have the same scenario here or the same setup is that grace for those who are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, for those who have trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ for eternal life, if you haven't done so yet and you're sitting there and wondering whether or not you're saved or not, the fact is that Jesus Christ died for you. There's nothing that you can do for your salvation. You can't fix yourself. It comes down to a matter of trust by believing that the Lord Jesus Christ died for you. That here it was that this man that we when we were born, we are are physically alive, but we are spiritually dead, which means we were separated from from Christ. We have no relationship with him. We're born into a world that is universally lost, that is universally judged and is universally going to be destroyed. Now Noah was in that world. Noah was in a world that it was universally judged. It was going to be wiped out. But Noah was a righteous man. How did he become righteous? Just like it is today through faith by believing in the promises of God, just like it was with Abraham in Abraham 15, 6, that he believed in the promises of God and it was credit for him for righteousness. And you too can receive that right this moment right where you sit, right where you're listening to this. And it's a matter of trust. It's believing, it's trusting that the Lord had receiving it as truth and standing on that truth that Jesus Christ is the Messiah. There's nothing you can do. Belief, faith is a non-meritor system of faith. You are being graced out right now as an unbeliever, all the way up to this point. But to enter into that greater grace, because as I've often said, as I say quite often, that when the grace train pulls out, the judgment train pulls in. And again, grace is not an attribute of God. Grace is not an attribute of God such as his love, his righteousness, his justice, his immutability, his eternality, his sovereignty, those are those things that God is. But God is not grace and God is not mercy. Those are divine prerogatives. And God can withhold his grace and he can withhold his mercy. He can draw it back. And there is coming a time when God says, that's it. No more grace for you. But the greater grace will sustain you. The greater grace sustains the believer as it sustains Noah. Judgment is coming. And so here is John. So Revelation is drawn us near to that great and terrible day of the Lord. And when the Lord is going to come back to establish his kingdom. And so greater grace is extended to those that will be preserved through the great and terrible day of the Lord. They will be brought out of it for the church prior to the return of the Lord. There will be the exostasis, the exit resurrection. And the Lord will remove the believer prior to that. Okay, getting back to our greeting here. John is in the 7th Church of Asia, grace to you and peace. This peace is Irenae in the Greek. Irenae is a set of favorable circumstances involving peace and tranquility. And there's number of ways we can look at peace. And like righteousness, there is a relative righteousness. Our master theme used to call it a negative R, which is a righteousness that's based upon our moral, our moral standing, abiding by a set of human moralistic standards, right behavior, you might say. And you might be a pillar of the community. That's a relative righteousness based upon your behavior. And Isaiah says that all of our righteous deeds or all of our righteousnesses are as filthy rags to the Lord. They do not meet our own standard of righteousness, regardless of how good it is, does not meet the standard of God. It falls short. But then you have positive righteousness. And it is the righteousness that we receive at the time of our spiritual birth. And now we are made righteous before God. It's not, and we receive that standard from God, through justification that we are deemed righteous. So just like there is a relative righteousness and actual righteousness plus R, there's also a relative peace. And the quality relative peace and let's just say actual peace or true peace, there is the relative peace, which is based upon favorable circumstances, favorable circumstances, no war, peace where everybody gets along, peace where there is established law. That's a good thing. I'm not downing it. We, good government, good government, prosperity, the chicken and every pot kind of thing, the where no war. And that is a relative peace. It's based on circumstances. And when everything's right, there is an irony and tranquility, very good. But then there's an actual, and but that peace is like the righteousness that it's, as the scripture says, peace, peace where there is no peace. And the definite, my definition of peace, the actual peace, the true peace, the plus P, like there's a plus R, we'll say plus P, that that piece is harmony between the creator and his creation, harmony between the creator and his creation, peace with God. And first of all, grace, you've received the grace. Now you've got a favorable circumstances before the God in heaven. And that peace comes once again, that peace comes first by believing and trusting in him. Look at where that comes, trust. When there's a free gift that is offered and you reject it. I'm going to I'm going to go back and regroup. Let's go back and put on this one. Go back and replay on this one. In the garden with man and woman in the garden, they had perfect peace. Why did they have perfect peace? They had perfect peace because they had a right relationship with the Lord. But the moment that they stepped out of that relationship, there was no longer peace. There was no peace in their soul. There was shame, there was guilt, there was a disharmony, that shame and that guilt. And there is no peace when there's turmoil in your soul. They knew that there was a problem. Why do I know that? Because they put on fig leaves. Maybe if we corrected our appearance, everything would be all right. And then their friend, the Lord came into the garden in the cool of the day. What did they do? They went and hid from the one that they were to have a relationship with. You don't hide from someone that you have a perfect peaceful relationship with. There was a conflict between now, them and God. There was a barrier between them. And it transpires to the day. So you can fix your environment. Maybe you can clean up the world and do whatever you can. And you'll have a certain level of satisfaction peace as it were. But the fact is, without the peace of God, and remember that Jesus Christ is the principal. Without the principal, there is no peace. For those who die and are buried, and they are unbelievers, to put rest in peace on their gravestone is nothing more than a false hope. Because there will be, there is no peace in hell. There really isn't. And so here it is that that peace, John said in this greeting, "Grace to you and peace." And this is not from favorable circumstances. This is not from your president. This is not from man. This is not from John. But this is from, let me bring it up again. There we go. John to the seven churches that are in a grace to you and peace from him. And Sunday we will pick up at this point who is and who was and who is to come. And from the seven spirits who are before the throne. So those are the ones that we will pick up on Sunday morning. And with that we are, because I'm looking at the time here, with that I want to give it just enough time to go over, I think we went over the full lesson here. So I just want to spend the next 15 minutes or so and going over the quiz. And I think it's pretty neat. The new Logos or the upgraded Logos has AI on it. And some of the features of AI that's on it, I don't care for it all, but AI does come up with some good questions. And I really appreciate that from Logos. Helps me a little bit on that. All right, on quiz number one. You ready for this one? All right. What is the significance of the term blessed in Revelation 1-3 according to the sermon? And that's coming in Revelation. Blessed is he who reads and for those who hear the words of the prophecy and heed the things which are written in it for the time is near. So what is that significance of the term blessed? Any idea? Blessed. Blessed. What is blessed? There is a happiness. There is a happiness. There is a joy. There is a joy. Yeah. And that's okay. We've got some multiple choices here. Which we've got ABC and D. Which one is that? Okay. There is a happiness connected to this book. When we look at Revelation, Revelation is the only book that has the promise of happiness. The happiness that comes to the believer. But what do you think? Any idea why one would be happy knowing this book by reading the ones who read it, the one who hears it, the one who obeys it? Because it's basically bringing the beginning to the end and to be able to read it and it brings it brings the the prophecies, gods, gods, providentia will to his to our happiness to our to our everlasting, which would be everlasting, eternal life with him and to the Jews that he promised. It's a promise to us as a church and a promise to the to his people. Because they will know this. They will be revealed this. So we'll all come together. There's a joy seeing God's plan come together. Oh, yeah. I would go with it. There's a joy. So we just go with that. There's a joy of seeing God's plan come together. So I might answer number two. How does a sermon relate the happiness of believer to the response to the scriptures? I think I just answered that too. It is the recognition seeing God's plan come together. I think there's a happiness in seeing that first part in Revelation. It says the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his bond service, the things which must soon take place. And we love it. We are ones who love his appearing. We are a great anticipation is seeing the return of Christ and seeing these things starting unfold. There is an greater anticipation and happiness knowing that that's that that is coming is near. All right. Number three. What word best describes a Greek adjective, Markaryos? Happy. Yes. The word happy. Often you see it happy that you see the word usually as blessed. Blessing belongs to God. And when you look at us, it's a salute to the Lord. Abowing to him. But when it comes to Markaryos, that's that's what belongs to the believer. Happiness. It is a condition within one's soul. Okay. Anything they want to add to that back? No. All right. Number four. According to the letter of Revelation, who is Markaryos? Who is experiencing Markaryos? The one who reads and those who hear and those who heed to his words. Very good. The one who reads, remember that oratory, it's whoever standing in the pulpit reading the word of God. In that time of writing, there was limited resources that not everyone had a Bible. Not everyone, not everyone had the letter, but they came to hear the person up in the pulpit or whatever they had to read the letter. He was happy. Because it was actually there was a speak on it. What's that? So he would have a certain level of happiness. He's reading God's word. There should be a happiness involved there. For those and then he, that's a singular, but then those who hear the word, those who hear it, those who take it in. And there's happiness to us to when we receive, when we open our heart, as Becca likes to hear, those who have an ear, let them hear what the spirit says to the churches. There is the spiritual, and that is spiritual understanding. Let me say again, those who hear is those with the capability of hearing, which are believers, church age believers. In this description that is spiritually discerned, that under the filling of the Holy Spirit to hear these words being taught. And then all of those, the reader and those who are hearing, all of those who obey, that is taking in the word, not being here is only, but being practitioners of what is being heard, just like James says, do not be here is only, but be doers of the word. All right. Number five. How does a preacher relate to beatitudes in revelation? How does the preacher, me, how do we relate? Let me just say this. How do we relate to beatitudes in Matthew five, to the, I should reread it, rewrote just a little bit. How do we compare Matthew five, Matthew, Matthew five, to this happiness in revelation? How's that? Yeah, that was a confusing question. Yeah, I didn't answer it. It confused me. Comparing because of the, um, emphasizing the, uh, happiness that was to come through the persecution, through the, uh, different things. And you see in Matthew that it points out that he, Sermon on the mountain, was not just of the times, but what was to come. So, um, it very does relate to revelation because you read through there. Um, and of course it is, uh, it is. Well, if you read through revelation, you would understand it. Just read revelation, all of it, and then you would know. All right. Um, but yeah, you, you hit it. The, um, there is the prospect of pressure that the believer is going to come into with the prospect of blessing on the other side of that pressure. Okay. And that was number five. Okay, going through revelation lists some occurrences of the number seven. Okay. Well, we first got the seven days that, uh, I mean, the seventh day that God rescued and he blessed the day, seventh day. Um, all right. This is for revelation and revelation specifically. Seven, the sevens. Oh, the seventh and revelation. All right. Okay. Well, it is the in revelation. Um, All right. I didn't go over this. I didn't. But your notes, that's what you were pointing out. Yeah. Yeah. I know it's, but this, this required you to read me. So let's look at this. Let me bring it. I didn't catch the, you put it. Okay. Okay. First of all, let me tell you that there are 60 references, 60, 60 year old references to the number seven in revelation. And there's, um, how many 60, um, I didn't get the count of how many, but let's take a look at the different times that sevens come up in the book of revelation. Well, one is the seven churches. Seven churches, very good. Yes. That's one of them. You've got the seven spirits. Seven spirits, very good. You got the seven lampstands. Seven lampstands. You got the seven golden lights and the seven stars. Seven stars. And the churches and what you said that, um, I don't know if there's seven trumpets. Seven trumpets? Yes, there are. Some trumpets and seven bowls. Seven bowls? Yes. Um, some trees and some trumpets. Um, seals, seven seals. Seven seals, very good. All right. Let me, uh, oh, I've got a list here. So let's go list. You got a lot of them. Still a lot left. Okay. There we go. Up on the board. Seven churches. Seven letters. Seven spirits. Seven golden lampstands. Seven stars. We've got seven stars. Seven torches of fire. Seven seals. You got that one. Seven horns of the lamb. Seven eyes of the lamb. Seven angels with trumpets. Seven thunders. Seven thousand killed. Seven heads of the dragon. Seven crowns of the dragon. Seven heads of the first beast. Seven angels with plagues. Seven plagues. Seven bowls of wrath. Seven mountains. Seven kings. Seven Beatitudes. I think that's it. Yep. Seven Beatitudes. So those, uh, those are sevens. Um, within there, I don't know if I missed any, but, um, if so, um, it gives you an idea that number seven is very important. And what it, what it's significant, it's significance is that it means completion a whole and we will certainly do a lot more, um, analysis of the number seven. And hopefully, um, if we leave with something out, hopefully we'll uncover it or the spirit will uncover it for us and we'll, we'll pray for blessing or pray for that for wisdom. All right. And then last question. Number seven, kept at seven questions. Seven questions for us. All right. What is the biblical meaning of semitah, semitah, um, uh, as explained in the sermon. It is the seventh year of seventh. Yeah, very well. It's the spatical, the spatical year. Yeah, spatical year. That's right. And then what, what would be the fiftieth year? Well, the fiftieth year is that that after the seventh sabbatical would be the jubilee year. Yeah. That's the seventh, um, that was fiftieth, fiftieth year jubilee. Oh, I thought it was. Okay. Okay. It would be the seven, which would be the after the seventh. Why you wrote it though, it sounded like, any questions? That one. No. All right. My friends, it's another fine day in the Lord. We're closing it out for the evening. Um, enjoyed it. Enjoyed having you with us, with me with us. So you want to close out? Sure. Grace is having a follow. We thank you for this opportunity to, to learn your word and to be able to continue learning your words through our time of devotion, time of reading your word and being able to get a blessing out of it to be happy to obtain the joy out of it. And we pray that you'll give us the wisdom and the knowledge to understand. And we thank you for this day. We thank you. Be with us as we come to our rest tonight and give us a good nice rest. And we pray for those that carry and tell and especially and others that are going through a tiny part ship and place your hand upon them in the healing and comfort. And we thank you for all these things, all your, for your grace, your mercy and your love. And most of all your salvation that you provided to us through your Son. And through His name, we pray in Christ name. Amen. Amen. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]
Salutation of John to the seven churches; the church as a whole.